Linear vs Neon
Linear and Neon are both developer tools tools. Linear is aimed at developers and small businesses, while Neon is aimed at developers. Both have a free plan.
| Pricing | Freemium · $10 | Freemium |
| Starting price | $10/mo | Not published |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Built for | Developers, Small businesses | Developers |
| Platforms | web, macos, windows, ios, android | web |
| Country | US · 2019 | US · 2021 |
| Rating | — | — |
Choose Linear if
Product and engineering teams from 3 to a few hundred people who ship continuously and want speed over configurability.
- Fastest issue tracker in day-to-day use; keyboard-first design
- Opinionated structure keeps teams consistent without configuration
- Excellent GitHub, Slack and Sentry integrations
Look elsewhere if: Organizations that need bespoke workflows, custom issue hierarchies, or a single tool for marketing, HR and engineering.
Choose Neon if
Developers who want elastic Postgres with branching and are comfortable assembling the rest of the stack.
- Branching changes development workflows
- Pay only for compute you use
- Fast provisioning, great for AI agents and previews
Look elsewhere if: Teams wanting an all-in-one backend (Supabase) or steady high-throughput workloads where reserved instances are cheaper.
Linear vs Neon pricing
Linear
- Free$0Unlimited members, 2 teams, 250 issues
- Basic$10/user/moBilled yearly; 5 teams, unlimited issues and uploads, admin roles
- Business$16/user/moBilled yearly; unlimited teams, private teams, Insights, Asks
- EnterpriseCustomAnnual only; SAML, SCIM, advanced security
Neon
- Free$0100 CU-hours and 1 GB storage per project, 100 projects
- Launch$0.106/CU-hourUsage-based, no minimum; storage $0.35/GB-month; 7-day restore
- Scale$0.222/CU-hourUsage-based; 30-day restore; SOC 2, HIPAA, SLA
Linear · Key features
- Cycles (sprints) with automatic rollover and capacity view
- Projects and initiatives with milestones, updates and roadmap views
- Triage inbox for bugs and requests from Slack, Intercom, Zendesk and Sentry
- GitHub/GitLab automation: branch naming, PR links and auto-close on merge
- Insights dashboards for velocity, scope change and cycle time
- Local-first sync engine; the app works offline and feels instant
Cons
- Limited customization compared with Jira (no custom issue types)
- Reporting is improving but still lighter than enterprise tools
- Not designed for non-engineering departments
Neon · Key features
- Serverless Postgres with scale-to-zero and autoscaling
- Instant database branching for previews and testing
- Point-in-time restore and time travel queries
- Postgres extensions including pgvector
- Connection pooling and HTTP driver for edge runtimes
- API for programmatic project and branch creation
Cons
- Cold starts after autosuspend
- Costs can surprise at sustained high compute
- Database only; bring your own auth and storage
Linear vs Neon: FAQ
Do Linear and Neon have a free plan?
Yes, both Linear and Neon have a free plan; paid plans add more usage and features.
Which is better for small businesses, Linear or Neon?
Linear lists small businesses as a core audience, while Neon is aimed more at developers.